Football: Roma punish Juve

THE BRAZILIAN Paolo Sergio and the Frenchman Vincent Candela were both on target yesterday as Roma defeated a depleted Juventus side 2-0 to trim Fiorentina's Serie A lead to one point.

Fiorentina were surprisingly beaten 4-2 at Piacenza after twice levelling the score from penalties.

Francesco Totti's pin-point free-kick found Sergio unmarked in the Juve area for the 44th-minute opener, before Candela added a superb second in the dying minutes to condemn the champions to their second defeat of the season. Juventus had the Uruguayan Paolo Montero sent off in the 59th minute.

Fiorentina eventually capitulated to second-half goals from Paolo Cristallini and Giampietro Piovani. It was their third successive away defeat. With 17 points from nine matches, Roma are ahead of Juventus on goal difference and one point behind Fiorentina.

Elsewhere the Argentinian Hernan Crespo resolved Parma's recent goalscoring problems with a hat-trick in a 4-1 home win over Udinese, while Youri Djorkaeff hit two penalties in Inter's 3-0 victory over Sampdoria at the San Siro.

Celta Vigo beat Real Madrid at the Bernabeu for the first time in 50 years to go top of the Spanish league. The 2-1 win left the Galician club still unbeaten this season with 20 points. Real, who saw Davor Suker miss a late penalty, slipped to third on 18 points. The Brazilian World Cup defender Roberto Carlos scored for Real, but he al so made two errors that resulted in goals.

In France, the league leaders, Marseilles, continued their impressive start to the season before a crowd of 50,000 with a 1-0 win against last season's champion Lens, to move four points clear at the top. Christophe Dugarry scored the goal.